I'm awakened one morning at Dingboche by two sounds outside the tent: the mellow peeling of yak bells as the beasts that carry our loads wander among the sparse vegetation near our camp, and the sound of Wally Berg's voice pointing out the peaks around us to Eric Simonson. We've been in a cloud for a couple of days, so I rush to get dressed and have a look. They're all there in perfect, early morning sunshine: Pikalde, Taweche, Tamserku, Island Peak, and more. It's a wild and starkly beautiful setting.

It's black as pitch and we end up in somebody's potato field.
Most climbers and trekkers on the approach to Everest go through Pheriche, just over the hill. But it's colder and windier there, without the austere charm of the stony village of Dingboche. We're actually staying here a day longer than planned at the suggestion of Eric, who feels his client, Leslie Buckland, laid low with a cold, is going to get better faster here than he would at 16,000'.

The village itself is a long cluster of stone houses and walled in fields and pastures that stretches along a gentle valley. There's a couple of spooky-looking stupas sitting on the bare hill above our camp, draped in prayer flags, faded and ragged from the elements. I spent a lot of time wandering in those hills, and those stupas have stayed with me.

The weather's been bad, though, and we haven't been able to phone in a dispatch because the array of solar panels was buried in a couple inches of snow. In that condition, they can't charge the batteries. The satellite phone won't work without juice.

Click here to see an enlargement. The news must get through, however, so last night a couple of us walked farther up the village by headlamp to a tea house, Sonam's Friendship Lodge. Turns out Sonam is married to our cook Ong Chu's sister, and the word was out that Sonam had a twelve volt system charged by a lone solar panel that runs one fluorescent fixture. This is the way it is in the Khumbu: people know each other, people help you out.

Sonam's got a reserve power source, what looks like a motorcycle battery, and says sure, give it try. We stick the phone in the window, apply the clamps to the terminals, and the phone lights up. We make the call, have a glass of hot lemon with Sonam and his wife and their lodgers, then stumble down the rocky path back toward camp. It's black as pitch, though, and we end up in somebody's potato field — all those rock walls are confusing — but eventually make it back and jump into our sleeping bags.

Here we were really in the heart of the high, vast terrain that surround Everest and the other peaks of the region. There was little agriculture and the lives of the Sherpa people are spartan by any standards.

Draped along the greatest heights of the Himalaya, the kingdom of Nepal is a land of sublime scenery, time-worn temples, and some of the best walking trails on earth. It's a poor country, but it is rich in scenic splendour and cultural treasures. The kingdom has long exerted a pull on the Western imagination and it's a difficult place to dislodge from your memory once you return.

This is why so many travellers are drawn back to Nepal, armed the second time round with a greater appreciation of its natural and cultural complexity, a stout pair of walking boots and a desire for improved leg-definition. Click Next